Whaling ship - The Art of Dishonored

I really love this ship, with its moving nose that can trap whales when
harpooned. The story of its inception started one day when I was visiting
our office in Austin.

I noticed a guy on stilts cleaning the building façade and told Harvey
(co-creative director) we could put stilts on our town crier (loud speakers
replaced this guy). He agreed, and the guy instantly became a Tallboy. Then
slowly, game designers modified his original purpose, and the Tallboy became
a guard, armed with its bow.

I then proposed to place a canister on his back, full of phosphorus, to get
nice visual effects when he shoots arrows. Harvey preferred to use whale
oil. Ok, but now we need Whales right? Hard to see Whales if you don’t swim
in the middle of the ocean, so it was time to design a whaling ship. Here’s
the result!

I then realized that the game universe was autonomous, no need to add anything
from our real world. This world had its own needs and its own solutions as
its own universe.